The application deadline for our winter 2016 batch is next Tuesday, and people frequently have a lot of questions about applying. Also happy to talk about anything else!
EDIT 11:15 AM PDT: I have to go. This was fun!
Readit NewsReadit NewsEDIT 11:15 AM PDT: I have to go. This was fun!
At a minimum, I expect YCR researchers to be turning down job offers from YC companies all the time.
From the perspective of a biotech researcher in the US, the funding model here is broken. As a result of funding levels falling for more than a decade, and universities being less willing to invest in individuals without consistent major funding, getting grants has become a very political process.
I applaud YC's efforts. We need alternatives, but I am not sure that YC is interested in the same kinds of research that the legacy funding system used to support. Science is not sexy. The results can be incredibly sexy, but you never go in looking for those sexy results.
EDIT: In addition, it's worth considering the difference in the peak talent age of a researcher as compared to a programmer. You can code in your bedroom as a preteen, but it's very difficult to get unfettered access to a molecular research laboratory before the age of 22. The best researchers are older, and that changes the equation in important ways.
Here are my thoughts on the topic: http://yansh.github.io/articles/phd-distruption/
It'll be very exciting to see what happens.
There are many industries out there for which failure is hard - one of them is being an athlete in pro sports. If you aren't at the top, you won't make it to the pros. Not to say that a system that allows for failure is bad or good, but that I think it requires more thought than a simple response.
How can an entire discipline that is supposedly based on rational evidence-finding be such a cliquey clusterfuck? You're basically saying that if you don't follow the community rules, which more or less boil down to "hazing," you'll be excommunicated. Sounds like a cult, to me... as is any culture where "fear" is the primary motivator not to try something different.
Don't the laws of nature exist everywhere? Why can't anyone "do science," then?
I am glad I work in a meritocracy-based industry where anyone with any background can "ship" and succeed, and that has a low tolerance for bullshit.
A YCR "fellow" (or whatever it'd be called) would probably not be a competitive candidate for an academic position. It's not because they weren't in academia, it's because they will likely not have the work product used to measure performance in a academic setting. A hiring committee is not going to risk department funds on someone with a non-existent track record when there's a line out the door of other candidates.
I think OP is correct in perceiving that selecting YCR would probably close the door to a future in academia. I will also predict that YCR will have difficulty hiring top academic talent.
Having worked in research academia, as a hospital medical tech, as a technical support bloke, and now several years across several different companies doing devops, I call hogwash. The software/startup world is replete with bullshit, more than anywhere else. Not to mention the huge amounts of time spent "chasing the shiny", where new tools are used because of fashion rather than merit. And network effects are just as strong in the startup world as in academia or medicine.
Occasionally a bedroom-based programmer can strike it lucky, but that's not the bulk of the startup world.
> Don't the laws of nature exist everywhere? Why can't anyone "do science," then?
Everyone can 'do science'. Youtube is filled with people doing science with everyday items. It's just that most human-scale stuff is low-hanging fruit and has now been 'done'. The edges of science where we're progressing with new knowledge need more expensive tools to observe them.
This might be the most delusional thing I've read in this entire thread, and that's saying something. You can't take a look at founders of successful startups and sincerely tell me that anyone with any background can succeed. The whole idea of a startup excludes huge portions of the population (and I'm not talking about technical skills). Low tolerance for bullshit? The startup world is like 90% bullshit.
Your characterization of academia is way too exaggerated. Leaving academia has always been a semi-permanent move. There is no other job quite like academia, so unless you've done something truly amazing with your outside adventures then your resume is going to be inferior to people who have direct experience in the field. It's only logical.
“If you want total security, go to prison. There you are fed, clothed and given medical care. The only thing lacking...is freedom.”
This is a different scenario. YCR is just getting started, so there is definitely a risk involved for a young researcher. In academia, it would be good for a young postdoc to have a portfolio of projects. Maybe one that's likely to result in success, even if it's not groundbreaking and something else which is more high risk, high reward. As an advisor, I would be irresponsible if I didn't try to suggest such a strategy to anyone working for me--that way, even if the risky project fails, they have something they can show that they accomplished when they look for their next position. If YCR offers the researchers the chance to balance working on risky and not so risky projects, then it sounds like a good opportunity for a young researcher--they get funding (it's not clear what the time scale is--a postdoc in physics is 2-3 years) and a chance to focus on their research and to work with outside researchers. Typically (in physics), postdocs don't teach, so that's not an issue. However, the OPs worry that they won't be able to balance their portfolio is a reasonable fear.
Finally, on the issue of publication, this varies from field to field. I have reviewed papers from PRL, Nature, etc. At least when I do it, it's not the same as just writing a comment. One paper that I refereed was a methods paper. This paper will eventually find it's way into a "black box" computer program, so I thought it was important to be correct. So, besides looking in general at the method, I went through every step of the derivations, checked the integrals, looked for sign errors, etc. This is time consuming and a much different process from just writing a comment or two. A good journal does a lot to try to improve the signal/noise ratio of material. Mistakes are still made and sometimes the process breaks down. It could be improved--but
One of the great things about YCR is that it provides another route for people and it's important to experiment with different approaches. Until it's been tried, we simply won't know if this model works or not and I applaud them for putting up the money and resources to try the experiment. Also, the grant process has become rather broken--but that's a problem of there being a lot of excellent proposals out there (I've reviewed grants before), but not enough money out there to fund many of them. Again, I've heard cases where the process has broken down based on politics, but more of what I've seen and heard is that reviewers see a LOT of things that they would like to fund, but there's just not enough money to go around. So, researchers end up spending a lot of time submitting multiple proposals to multiple agencies because the chance of success is too low....
I hope YCR works out!!! But, I do hope that they allow their researchers to do some hedging by working on some incremental projects as well as high risk projects.
It's not easy, but if you succeed (and publish) then you can often get an academic job afterwards.
2. In regards to YC Research, can you tell us anything more about the (general) topic area(s) you will be interested in? And maybe expand a little bit more on what kind of mechanisms might be put in place to facilitate working with outside researchers (hopefully including independent researchers and / or other startups).
2. Not ready to talk about specific areas, but I promise they are interesting ones :)
It will be super super easy for our researchers to collaborate with outsider researchers because of our IP stance!
I can speak from Cuba, since I am originally from there. Cuba has been closed for 50 years to America, but that is changing now. There are really smart people, that just don't have the necessary access to capital or good advice.
Creating a branch of YC there would have a tremendous impact for local economy and people in addition of being a great business venture in a market that has been closed for half a century and is finally open. It's also worth mentioning that given the current economic situation, funding a startup in Cuba would only take a small fraction of what it takes to fund it in the US, with a lot of potential ROI since almost every industry can be disrupted significantly.
Long Beach seems to be starting to embrace the idea with things like its Bridgeworks project http://liherald.com/stories/New-startup-incubator-coming-to-...
I kind of want to start a company myself, there...
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I hope it's not UK. Both UK and France, as well as a few Nordic countries are starting to become very anti-privacy/anti-security. I don't think it would be "safe" to start there in the long term.
Go Switzerland or Germany.
http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html
http://old.ycombinator.com/ycca.html
It's also a much richer experience for the startups. If you want to be a top of the class founder, you better visit the "startup founder meca" to learn from the best... If they opened a branch in São Paulo, I wouldn't care to attend...
I keep hearing that, and I have never agreed with that sentiment and doubt I ever will. There are lots of good reasons for people to not want to go to SV for 3 months that in no way reflect on their commitment / will.
Applying for YC funding doesn't make sense for several reasons:
1. I want to be king, not rich; everything I hear tells me that YC pushes companies to grow fast and increase their valuations, and that's something I fundamentally don't care about. I know that I'm stubborn enough that this would just result in a lot of frustration on both sides.
2. Tarsnap doesn't need the money. It's solidly profitable, and I honestly have no idea what I would do with investment money.
3. I don't want to live in the bay area -- not even for 3 months. Granted, this seems like it may be less of an issue now that it's possible for people with pre-existing conditions to get medical insurance; but the bay area is fundamentally not somewhere I can ever imagine myself wanting to live.
4. Converting Tarsnap into a US corporation would eat a lot of time and money. I completely understand why it's necessary for companies YC is going to invest in; but it's another reason why having YC invest in Tarsnap doesn't make sense.
I think YC and its portfolio companies are doing great and interesting things, and I'd like to be part of the community... but as explained above, taking funding doesn't make sense; when I applied for the YC fellowship (I know it was a stretch) you told me to apply for funding instead; and you haven't asked me to be part of YCR.
Is there some other option here?
We're considering doing something for later-stage companies that might be a good fit, though we haven't sorted out details about the bay area for example. If it does end up as a 'go', we'd probably do it next year.
It's also possible in future iterations of the fellowship we'll be open to companies that are further along.
Hope we figure something out at some point!
Great to hear that there may be routes opening up in the future -- I'll keep my eyes open.
YC companies do technically interesting things for sure, but a lot of the community is probably more about hiring, office space, fund raising, financials, and that sort of thing. These are all different for high risk startups.
I heard about this "Micropreneur" thing several years ago. This is something that interests me, and I've been working part time on projects in this vein. It seems to me that people who want slower growth and less personal risk are inherently a little less "collaborative". That describes me and there's nothing wrong with it. Still, I understand the need to bounce ideas off of others, quickly fill in gaps in your knowledge, etc.
Yes, that's exactly it.
and even then it would be more of an outlier than a peer.
I'm not so sure about that. OK, in a financial sense sure; but I know there are lots of YC companies doing technically cool things. It's not all rapidly-growing social networks for cats. ;-)
Could you please expand on this? I am in the same vein as cperciva but it doesn't have any relationship with collaboration. Sometimes you have a relatively successful company where more capital and fast growth would cause more harm than good BUT because right now you can't see a path for growth.
Could you arrange to go down to YC periodically and hold "office hours" to begin relationships with founders that are doing interesting things in your areas of expertise?
Could these relationships lead to you becoming a technical advisor for some of them?
Could you angel invest in some of them?
Could you attend YC investor day?
Well, you see, there's this thing called the "Internet" which allows people to communicate over large distances...
Could you arrange to go down to YC periodically and hold "office hours" to begin relationships with founders that are doing interesting things in your areas of expertise?
That's something I'd absolutely be happy to do.
Could these relationships lead to you becoming a technical advisor for some of them?
If someone's interested in my advice, sure.
Could you angel invest in some of them? Could you attend YC investor day?
I don't think the amount I would be able to invest would be very meaningful. Also, I'm guessing the tax issues involved with cross-border angel investing would be painful. (Just a guess, but I find that assuming that tax issues are painful is a good default position.)
You mentioned a lot of reasons why Tarsnap can't be in the YC community. Perhaps you could come up with some reasons why you would have a place? It's marketing man ;)
The inescapable push would be to find fast/big growth areas, and to change tarsnap in whatever way necessary to fit in those niches.
This is kind of what Oculus does. John Carmack is in Texas with a small team, while most others are in California.
You retain absolute control over the core technology, but help your co-founder turn it into something more marketable and user friendly. Some of the Tarsnap GUIs authors might be interested in helping.
- the link: https://ycr.org - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10347821
Based on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10361472 it sounds like that's limited to the US for now too.
You don't want a top-notch dev team? You don't have dreams to reach more enterprise customers? You don't want a world-class marketing campaign? You don't want a research team dedicated to the "next big thing"? There are tons of ways you can improve your offering.
Stubbornness is a desire to remain the same, persistence is the willingness to constantly change.
I think I already have one. ;-)
You don't have dreams to reach more enterprise customers? You don't want a world-class marketing campaign?
Hell no. Those sound like a lot of work.
You don't want a research team dedicated to the "next big thing"?
Not really. I mean, research is great, but Tarsnap is a backup service. It shouldn't be a backup service which also dabbles in self-driving cars, or a backup service which also hosts minecraft servers. If I decide I want to do something new, it will be something new, not part of Tarsnap.
It may not be what the rest of us want, but remember that there are some companies that simply know what they're good at and want to own that particular niche.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7514618
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7523953
I'm a graduating college senior, and I've accepted a job at a very big company in the tech industry. Right now, it makes the most financial sense for me to join a big company and pay off my debt quickly, but at some point in the future I'd love to scratch that entrepreneurial itch and apply to YC.
How do I maximize my time at a big company to gain relevant skills to keep the possibility of a startup open in the future?
Also don't get sucked into living an expensive lifestyle when you get that high-paying job--this has killed many people's once-promising futures.
If you have very low interest student loans, pay them off at the minimum rate and save the cash - you will need it to launch the startup. And if then your startup makes you poor, you can usually do income adjusted deferment on remaining loans.
Four years later, I'm incredibly glad I didn't do it. I'm convinced I would have made bad technical decisions and doomed the company. I'm not a perfect software engineer now, but I'm worlds better than I was. Writing and deploying software on someone else's dime has given me invaluable experience, and I'm certain it's prepared me to be successful in my own company some day soon.
While at a big company, I'd still encourage you to work on side projects and see where they go. Doing that will give you even more experience in building an MVP.
1. Will the model be group-based where there's a head PI setting the research agenda for a group and researchers working under the PI? If so, what level of independence do you expect individual researchers within a group to have? I.e. is it more like the academic model with postdocs enjoying a fair degree of independence, or more akin to national labs where the research agenda is reasonably fixed and everyone is expected to contribute to the same research program? Or, are you coming up with an entirely different model?
2. In general how hands-on will YCR be in terms of intra-group management?
3. Do you expect to subscribe to all the major publishing houses so that YCR researchers have access to journals like they would at a top-tier university?
2. Not very unless asked.
3. Whatever the researchers want.
1) What advice would you give to applicants from Brazil and other large countries (India, China, Russia), whose products initially target their local markets?
2) What advice would you give to post-Seed and pre-Series A applicants? When (if at all) would you consider them "too big for YC"?
3) If you select a post Seed startup, would YC invest at their latest valuation, or would it only offer the standard deal, even if it would be a "down round" for current investors?
Heard you are visiting India and know you've been to Mexico not long ago. Ever thought about coming to Brazil? Best regards, Bernardo
2) We have funded companies that have raised more than $10 million, and they've said they still got a lot of value out of YC. If anything, it's usually the existing investors that have a problem with it.
3) Standard deal, BUT we buy common stock, so it doesn't trigger any anti-dilution stuff. Most investors understand that YC is mostly "sweat equity" anyway.
I might come to Brazil for New Years!
Just out of curiosity; I'm Brazilian too :)
What's yours?
Do you or YC have any thoughts on things you could do to help this, if any?
We do have some longer-term thoughts if the area can't get its act together and fix the problem.
I know very promising founders personally that were stuck working in parents' basements in the midwest because they did not yet have the resources to move to the Bay Area.
How can YC help during this critical "early development" (or should I say, exploration) stage for founders building companies? Is there a way it can help insulate early founders from learning the hard lessons the hard way? Traditional VCs would call these bets way too "risky."
I don't know if such a place exists though. Seems like everywhere nice to live is rife with NIMBYism.
It's really hard for employees 1-N, especially at sub-market salaries, but without 10% equity stakes, to move to SFBA. It pretty much restricts you to people already-here, people who will live college dorm style, or people who are already well off. Too much of the money raised goes out the door in salary (taxed) to pay for housing.
I was really excited by Campus, and hope we see a lot more startups with similar ideas.
Above, you mentioned a "bandaid" solution of increasing funding for YC founders to account for skyrocketing rent - but this only exacerbates the problem for everyone else, including YC companies' employees and the entire ecosystem that supports them.
Tech workers' willingness and ability to pay ever-increasing rent, underwritten by salaries drawn from irrationally exuberant venture capital investment in tech (low interest rates elsewhere), is driving a housing bubble that, in a vicious cycle, is then further fueled by property investment justified by ever-increasing rents.
I guess I was looking more for YC to take a leading role here in proposing solutions, rather than passively hoping for a fix. The simplest, as it seems to me: open a bleeder valve by providing incentives for successful YC companies to "settle" other startup hubs, or even just acting as a broker for bidding by those locations. I'm sure there are smarter fixes, but I can't see the harm in enacting these.